Yule Report

Yule was, well, amazing.

A few days ago I was worried about this holiday, because Ms. P was actively mourning Christmas and not having one. Since she has been much more of a practicing Christian in her life than I've been in mine, and since she actually likes spending time with her family, this makes sense. That it made sense did not, however, prevent me from some small panic that we would not have a nice Yule, that we would never be able to really live into our religion, and that we were doomed to a kind of false spirituality forever.

Early on I decided that, since this holiday is in part about the return of the Sun, I wanted to spend Yule without electric lights. I wanted to mindfully experience the light-dark cycle on this, the shortest day of the year. During the day this wasn't even noticeable, and we finished our holiday shopping and wrapped gifts and ate and napped. As we got closer to sundown, however, R found himself moving a little faster to get the kitchen cleaned up and functional, and we put out candles everywhere. We baked by candlelight. R made quiche for his office brunch this morning. We told stories and sang really bad queer remakes of holiday classics. E and J came over to celebrate Yule with our small group of spiritual companions, and we ordered Chinese and did a small ritual in which we named the things we wanted to let go of from the past year and ceremonially burned them to ash.

For R it was an emotional day, marking as it does the release of his marriage. For me it was a meditative day, in which I experienced again my longing for a life of slowness, of spareness, of wide open spaces of time and possibility. Of relationship and community and sustainability. The three of us committed to gardening next summer, I reaffirmed the ways I want to change my eating habits, and I let go of apathy and indecision. Even though I was cranky at the end of it (the extroverts were wound up from a day at work, and this introvert had to work herself up to get a word in edgewise), I felt blessed to have that day to remind me of our place on this earth and the ways I want to make my own life.

This morning Ms. P and I lay in bed and watched the sun rise from behind the trees. I realized how little I sit and watch these days; I only noticed now that we're near a takeoff path from a nearby international airport. I could see the different silhouettes of trees and the direction the clouds drifted. It was a blessing to welcome the return of the light, again, today.

Comments

[frog]

Beautiful.

[Sfrajett]

I loved the image of the sunrise from bed--perfect for welcoming the light back after these long nights!